Shadowbane

Sithe staggered back, the flames illumining her wiry body wrapped in loose black silks. It might have been a human body, but for the black skin and pulsing lines of darkness that traced her flesh like runes. The fire set these lines sparkling and glinted off a medallion that hung around her neck-a round onyx medallion encircled in a purple ring.

Gods. The emblem of Shar, goddess of darkness and of loss.

Kalen lunged forward and grasped the smoking axe haft. He meant to wrench it away, but she held it firmly. “What are you?” he asked.

Sithe gazed into his eyes but did not react. They stood there, both trying to wrest the axe from the other. They were matched in strength.

“Fight me, damn it!” Rhett said.

Vindicator swept through the air, but the silver blade skipped off a wave of darkness that manifested around Sithe like a shield. The woman swayed aside as though her dodge was how she had meant to move in the first place. If anything, Rhett’s strike put her in a better position and the distraction cost Kalen his inside advantage.

“Boy, I said get back!”

Rhett stepped between them, interposing his shield and the silver flame of Vindicator. “Torm burn you, Daughter of Darkness,” he said. “You will fight me or-”

Flame flared from the sword toward Sithe and encircled her-a halo of divine radiance. The dark woman took a step back, inspecting the holy magic. She looked as though she understood it better than Rhett did.

Rhett pointed the sword at Sithe. “Torm shall smite you, Scion of Demons!”

She glanced at Kalen with a gaze that echoed his earlier word: unlikely.

She closed her eyes and darkness swept around her like a mantle-Shar’s power, cloaking her servant. Against that darkness, Vindicator’s light faded.

She strode forward, her axe high over her right shoulder. Rhett swung as she approached, but Vindicator passed through her as though she were but a wraith. She swept through Rhett, her form like mist, and raised the axe over Kalen. He tried to dodge, but he picked the wrong direction. The blade lit fire down his left leg. He’d felt every ounce of that, which meant she’d cut deeply indeed. He fell to the ground as she brought the blade around for a finishing blow.

Suddenly silver radiance flared around the dark warrior’s body, bursting through her shielding darkness and setting her silk garb aflame. She faltered and her axe cleaved the cobbles next to Kalen’s face, skipping out of her hands. Sithe staggered back, batting at the flames that caught at her clothing. For the first time, she looked startled.

The silver halo pulsed, as did the sword in Rhett’s hand.

Finally, Sithe spoke: “Very well.” Her voice chilled Kalen as the coldest winter never could. He felt the weight of her wrath lift from him, shifting to Rhett.

“Run, boy!” Kalen said. “Run!”

She loped toward Rhett, claiming her axe as she bounded past.

For all his strength and Vindicator’s power, the boy lasted only heartbeats against Sithe. With his shield, he smashed aside her initial strike, but that had been a feint. In a fluid motion, she raised the butt of her axe over his shield and slammed it into his face, then leaped forward and kicked him in the chest as he reeled back against the butcher’s shop.

Sithe let one hand fall from her axe, the better to grasp Rhett’s sword wrist and hammer Vindicator free against the withered bricks. The blade bounced end over end across the alley. The radiance instantly fled from around Sithe, freeing her of its grip.

Sithe wasn’t done with the boy. She flowed from disarming him to elbowing him in the face. Rhett’s nose trailed blood as his head jerked to the side.

Kalen had one chance and he took it.

As Rhett slumped, Sithe danced away, moving with immortal grace. She took a two-handed hold on her axe and brought the ugly thing around, scything for his neck.

Kalen lunged between them, Vindicator raised.

Steel shrieked against steel as black axe exploded into fiery sword. Any mortal weapon would have shattered, but Vindicator held firm. Kalen strained to keep Sithe at bay. The woman looked into his eyes-darkness staring into him-then leaped back, bringing her axe around.

For his part, Kalen strode forward, praying that his injured leg held. He funneled his anger against the deep hurt. “You’re the one who took Myrin, are you not?”

She studied him wordlessly, her axe whistling softly as it tore the air.

“What are you?” he asked. “What do you want?”

Again, she stared at him silently with those empty black eyes.

“It matters little,” he continued. “You are a creature of shadow and I am called Shadowbane. I suppose you can guess how this will end.”

Sithe inclined her head slightly to the side. “I am not a shadow,” she said. “I am the nothing that the darkness hides-the void that the darkness cannot fill.”

Kalen shrugged. “Well, I’m adaptable.”

She seemed to consider this, turning her axe idly over her head. She caught the haft out wide, letting it hang like a scythe extending from her arm.

“You are the righteous arm of your god,” she said. “A divine killer, as am I.”

The words stirred an old, simmering rage inside him. “I am not like you.”

Sithe’s face gave his words the lie. “Your faith is weak-that is why you fail.”

“Test me,” Kalen said. “Show me that my faith is weaker than yours.”

“No need.” She nodded to the shadows behind him. “He is yours, Master.”

“Master?” Kalen realized, too late, he’d been tricked.

Pain erupted anew in his slashed leg and he fell to the cobblestones. Above him stood a halfling, shrouded in the shadows, blood dripping from the rapier he’d just rammed through Kalen’s thigh. He had auburn hair, eyes like green beads, and familiar sharp features. Kalen knew who he was.

“Toytere,” he said.

The halfling smiled brightly, revealing a mouth full of sharpened teeth-the better for tearing meat. “Cheers and well met, Little Dren,” he said, showing Kalen one of his own daggers-claimed from the cobblestones. “I’m so glad you be back.”

He hit Kalen in the face with the pommel of the dagger, plunging him into darkness.

We watch from the shadows.

We wait as the men come and take the two away.

“That, methinks, was ridiculously easy,” says the short one with the hat. “Emphasis on the ridiculous, no?”

The dark sister makes no reply. She looks. For us?

We wait.

“Something be amiss, Lady Void?”

She shakes her head. She does not see us. Her axe balances on her shoulder.

She is one of us, though she does not know it.

We delight.

CHAPTER SEVEN

22 KYTHORN (NIGHT)

Blinded, Kalen awoke to a chafing sensation in his lower half. Well accustomed to his benumbed body, he recognized the signs of being dragged. He heard whispers like soft squeaking. The smell-a mixture of sweat and